


Escape: the greatest sport

by letosatie



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letosatie/pseuds/letosatie
Summary: Patroclus and Achilles are reunited in the Underworld and rest in peace... well if searching all the Underworld for Briseis and provoking Hades can be considered peaceful.





	Escape: the greatest sport

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vassalady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassalady/gifts).



> Happy holidays @vassalady!

I think I thank her. Thetis has marked my name into the rock next to Achilles'. I think I gasp the words to thank her and they brush against her bone-skin but I am running, and she is left behind with her ambition. Every step must be heaved from my clumsy feet and I remember how Achilles ran like breathing, like silk falling. I keep on.

Then I am spitting a coin into my hand for Charon. I see my sandals sink in the river bank mud, it oozes against my toes but I can’t feel the cold of it. Achilles has dressed me for the pyre in a new robe made by Briseis’ hand from silks taken in the raids. It is too delicate for the roughness of the wooden boat but the splinters don’t catch at all. The fabric doesn’t have the density to interact with the bench. It is a farce. I have some weight to me as a shade, but I wonder how much is a mantle of fresh memory and how much I will fade as my name stops being spoken by the living.

It is so dark here. The water is purple-black and moving in unnatural eddies. I feel like I should be cold. I almost wish it.

I stand at the border into hell. I do not know which way to go. A pricking feeling swills over my back; it makes me feel raw and uncertain. I don’t know how long I stand here. I don’t know how time works in death. Eventually, I decide to just walk and walk until Achilles finds me, or I find him, or we find each other. 

I do not get far before I am met by soldiers of the Army of Hades.

They escort me to kneel before Hades himself, who rises from his throne and his mighty shadow falls upon me. The heat from him sears me where nothing else in the afterlife registers. He is not impressive in the delightful way Achilles is, how Achilles’ skills are hopeful and inspire action. He is grave in a way that depresses me into the dust, his black hair a curtain over one eye. I am pinned by him, despite my intent to fight to keep the things I love, and the breath comes sharp and short from my lungs.

Suddenly, his visible eyebrow quirks and he drawls, “Patroclus.” His voice rumbles the ground. “I am most pleased to see you.”

I greet him as best I can, “I am honored to meet you.” Though I would rather be alive. Though it is not Hades who I wished to see in the afterlife.

“He is a nuisance, a shameful, disappointing thing,” says the god of the underworld, motioning for me to stand. “I am glad you are here to bear the burden of him.”

“I know you do not speak of Achilles,” I say sharply. I have forgotten to be deferential in my anger. 

“Come,” Hades commands. He is not angry, only maliciously amused. “I’ll take you to your prison.”

“If you take me to Achilles,” I say, “it is rather that you release me. It will be for us as Winter is for you in the presence of your wife.”

He laughs then and leads me out of the palace and along a rocky path. 

Hades is dim. Everything is muted. It is somehow like the dulled world of swimming in the sea, only the light from the sun cannot be seen and there is no chance to ever again break the surface of the waves.

But he, when I see him, is in perfect clarity; my focus narrows to him, nimble as Briseis’ fingers as she mends and weaves. He has been ignoring our approach until I blurt his name; the last syllable doesn’t get past my teeth, but he hears and stands, twisting to find me. I am running; he is running. I think I am panting with it but it is a gasping laugh being driven from me, or it could be a gasping sob. His hands slide into mine. They fit snug and familiar. My happiness is beating back the grey. My happiness is blinding. We are alight with fierce victory, with savage relief. Our joy is burning and bright as the sun that Apollo stole from us on behalf of his precious Trojan princes, now dead. Such lifeless dolls we are to the Gods. Even Achilles, the best of us, had been iron to be wrought into a weapon by his mother. He is not that to me, he is everything under my hands. His cheekbones. The back of his neck. The veins raised on his arm. He is clasping and consuming, as he never was in life.

Now I see him close and he is dear but pale and broken. He is still the wild wound that clung to my festering body. 

I make a fist of his hair as if he will be taken again. He does not even wince. 

He is a shell. It’s because of me. I was meant to be his victorious happiness, but I’ve been the arrow that tripped him.

He lies in my arms and says he should have chosen long life instead of glory. He says it doesn’t matter that more people say his name because of what he did in Troy. He has no need to shine here, no need to be solid. What does it matter here amongst the tattered wisps of humanity? There is nothing to prove in the afterlife. There is no race to run anymore.

I ease into the afterlife. 

As time goes by, Achilles has moments of being content as he once was playing my mother’s lyre. He’ll flick a look to me over his shoulder and the glint in his eye is boyish and light. Other times, his eyes glaze over, and his hand will ghost toward me to touch and he seems surprised when it doesn’t go straight through the skin. My collarbone he touches, my cheek, the back of my hand. This, and this and this. 

I have told Achilles of Briseis, bravely standing up to Pyrrhus, of his spear to her back and her loss to the sea. We are meant to stay in the Asphodel Fields but Achilles is determined to search out Briseis, or news of her, to make me happy. As if my happiness hasn’t been woven tightly about the threads of him, in and out and strong and held fast. His face, set in purpose, convinces me to let him try. It is better than the glazed look, or the frantic joy. It is almost the golden boy from Phthia that leads me in subversive escapades to Elysian, to ask what ever soul will answer, “Have you heard of Briseis?” And in between, I talk of our past. “I am made of memories,” I told his mother, and here they spill from me while I try to reach the Achilles I knew from behind the wall of his trauma. Bit by bit, he stays lucid longer. Bit by bit, my hands feel his skin more intensely as our memories anchor us to right now; bit by bit our memories of who we were anchor us further to each other in this grey space. 

Then soldiers find us and we are to answer Hades’ summons to present ourselves at the palace and explain why we have been flouting his rules. 

“We search for our third,” Achilles informs him, as if utterly unaware he has been causing Hades headaches. “Briseis of Lyrnessus. Perhaps you could ask your brother what became of her in his domain?”

It is absurd, to stand before the god to whom you directly answer and make a request such as this one. 

“Why would I do that?” Hades rumbles, but I notice his eyebrow is up again and so is the corner of his thin mouth. 

“In exchange for our promise of good behaviour?” Achilles suggests with no hint of conviction.

Hades is definitely hiding a smile this time. 

I step forward and say as formally as I can, “This is Achilles _aristos achaion_ he can command your army, maintain order in your absence.”

“I’m never absent,” Hades points out.

“This is your chance,” I say, “and Briseis can be a companion for your queen when she is in residence.”

“I have seen no evidence of your ability to lead men, Achilles Peleides.”

“Then set me a challenge. I would prove my abilities.”

Hades bends his head in contemplation, but I can tell he is only deciding on what tasks he will set, I can tell his decision is already made. I have seen this before with Achilles, when man and god expect from Achilles, become entitled about his potential, they will be disappointed. Not because Achilles can’t do anything he sets his mind to, but because he won’t be told. If Achilles gets to decide how to show off, he is enchanting. 

“You will complete a challenge to win my trust,” Hades decrees, “you will perform a task to earn pertinent information I have of Briseis. Then you will promise me a favour for the chance to retrieve her, and you will display loyalty of service to gain Briseis her place in the palace for half the year. Do you need to hear further terms? Or do you accept?”

Achilles beams, as solid as if he had a sword in his hand, lit up as if the sun could touch him here. “I accept,” he says. And I follow him.


End file.
